journal features

may the fourth be with you!

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2014.05.04

Today we went to the toy store to pick up a scooter for The Boy; incredibly, there was a line up waiting for the store to open.

When I told a staffer I'd never seen a line-up waiting for a toy store to open, he told me it happened every weekend. So it wasn't just their sale on Star Wars related LEGO, titled after the humorously named day on the geek calendar, "May the Fourth be with you". It's not the biggest date on the calendar (which might be either "Pi day" on March 14, or "Towel day" on May 25), but it's still recognized by most denominations.

Anyway, Ken took to the scooter like a duck to water. He was even able to take the ~1km trek to the bike shop with me on scooter - a journey that's entirely uphill in one direction and requires that he uses the brakes the entire way back.

(For the record, I bought a $20 adjustable stem and made my bike even slower and more upright than it already was. I'm essentially making a cruiser out of my KHS Urban Xpress in the name of saving my back.)

rand()m quote

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.